HAVANA - Cuban President Fidel Castro, one of the world's most enduring leaders, handed over power provisionally to his brother and underwent surgery, he said in a statement read out on state television on Monday.
Castro, who has led Cuba since his unkempt guerrillas swept down from the Sierra Maestra hills to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, said he overexerted himself this month on a trip to a summit of South American leaders and celebrations of his 1953 assault on a military garrison.
He delegated his posts as first secretary of the ruling Communist Party, commander in chief of the armed forces and president of the executive council of state to Raul Castro, 75, his younger brother and designated successor.
"This caused an acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding," said the statement signed by Castro and read out by aide Carlos Valenciaga.
Street celebrations immediately erupted in Miami, a hotbed of opposition to Castro's communist government where news of his delegation of power was greeted as a signal of his imminent demise.
"We're obviously taking it seriously," Alfredo Mesa, the 31-year-old director of the anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation, said of the reports from Havana.
"People on the island who have received this information are also taking it seriously," Mesa told a Miami television station.
Havana Quiet
The streets of Havana, a city of 2 million, were quiet and there were no signs of stepped up police patrols. Youths sipped rum and listened to guitar music on the Malecon sea-wall.
"It will all work out OK," said a parking attendant.
Somber-looking television newscasters, some wearing black, announced that Castro would have an important announcement to make to the country after the news.
Castro said the operation has forced him to rest for several weeks.
Castro's health has been an issue since he fainted during a speech in 2001, raising uncertainty over the future of Cuba, the Western Hemisphere's sole communist country.
His pace has slowed since he stumbled after a speech in October 2004, fracturing a knee and an arm.
Castro said he was delegating power to his brother because Cuba was "under threat from the U.S. government."
U.S. Reacts to Castro News
The U.S. State Department said it could not confirm the reports of Castro's surgery or the delegation of powers and White House spokesman Peter Watkins said he didn't want to speculate on Castro's health. "We are monitoring the situation," he told Reuters.
The administration of President George W. Bush, seeking to undermine a succession to Raul Castro and foster a transition to multi-party democracy and a free-market economy, has tightened enforcement of sanctions on Cuba and increased funding of Cuba's small and repressed dissident movement.
One U.S. official described Castro's carefully scripted announcement as exceptional and suggested Cuban officials were trying to control expectations about the government's future.
"At this point, there's no reason to discard what they've said. They have a reason to mold expectations," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Raul Castro said in June that the Communist Party will govern Cuba and maintain the island's socialist society when Fidel Castro is no longer around.
"I have no doubt that our people will fight to the last drop of blood to defend ... this historic process," Fidel Castro said in his televised statement.
Feeds